marie-madeline studio

Apphia's room~

I love, love, love my bedroom-- it is so Apphia, as Mom would say.  Pink and gold and black and white, with punches of turquoise to keep it interesting. 

First of all, my new addition... a gorgeous pink mirror!  I found the old window at a flea market for $8.  And it was just so perfect for my room that we couldn't pass it up.  Dad (who can do everything, by the way) fixed it up for me.  Nan helped me add the finishing touches when she was here!  

  

I'm really not sure how I came up with the idea to use the widow as a mirror.  But the mirrors cost way more than the window.  Gulp.  The brass sconces were flea market finds, with candles from Hobby Lobby (at half price, of course... you see how I'm making up for the $$ of the mirrors by purchasing everything else at bottom dollar?  Good girl.)... Nan found the fabulous tray at a garage sale.

     

The pillows~

 

The matching valance above the closet door (we made curtains when Nan was here!)~

  

Nick-nacks~

     

My flea-market-find-magazine-rack and dresser~

     

My nightstand (thanks, Paps- I love you!) and little gold chair~

    

Other pretties (the lovely lamps belonged to Nan & Paps years and years ago... they are some of my favorite things!)~

  

 

Unique Border Ideas

As you can probably tell, we're not much for decorating things in the "ordinary" way. Oh no. Sometimes our ideas turn out perfectly. Others we have to work on a little. But we always like to think that that's the beauty of it... keep working, rearranging, etc. until you find something you like. And like our sewing room adventure "Is it practical?" Here I think we found something practical and something that's cute too.

Two rooms in our home have pretty wall borders that we made up. What sets this apart from other borders are a couple things: 1) no wallpaper involved  2) it's only on one wall. Sounds different, don't you think?

This room needed something prettier and more delicate so we used vintage rose postcards and sheer red ribbon. The postcards are held on the back with sticky tack (found at Hobby Lobby and other craft stores). 99% of the time sticky tack comes off fairly easily and shouldn't damage the postcards at all.

This room, on the other hand, is eclectic 70's brights, so it needed something more fun. We chose to use special letters, drawings, and notes from sweet little girls. In this room we tacked them up with white thumb tacks and used yellow grosgrain ribbon behind them.

Why this is such a extra neat idea (in my humble opinion!) is that it can be done very inexpensively and be made to fit almost any room in your house! Try this in a new babies room; I'm sure you could make it really cute with some kind of sweet baby memorabilia.

The possibilities are really endless! Your choice...now you decide!

Nanny's Visit Days 2 & 3:: Painting and the Picket Fence

We know, we know... we're were supposed to post daily. We're sorry... the days just come and go so quickly! Here's a little blurb of what we did yesterday and today.

Yesterday was spent mainly in painting the boys' room a pretty pale brown color. To us it looks just like yummy chocolate milk. And it's very surprising how cozy it makes a room feel! Nanny and Apphia are the official "cutting-in-a-room" painters (for us non-painters the term means go around the edges, near the baseboards, and trim!), so yesterday for awhile they worked on that while Mom helped the boys go through all the "goodies" they have.  

Here Nanny's starting to cut in the room, while Abigail looks on.

Apphia's working on some more painting while Caleb and Abigail keep her company.

Then Nanny had this impressive idea to paint a blue stripe on the wall with the window, and paint a Bible verse above it. Earlier this morning, Nanny worked on that by herself. We chose a verse that we thought would be good for our wonderful young men... 2 Timothy 2:1 "Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."

She did this all free hand! Unbelievable to me! Now the finished product...

This afternoon we also enjoyed going into town and visiting one of our favorite local flea markets, The Picket Fence (Nanny loves flea markets as much as we do!). Mom and Nanny had decided on some nice storage solutions for the floor of the closet so off we went to Lowe's to pick up some things. Lord willing you'll get to see them tomorrow! (By the way, we also had to stop at the fabric store for some things...)

While we were in town we also picked up some Domino's Pizza for our movie and pizza night tonight... we're taking the evening off work.

P.S. Paps, if you're reading this, we love and miss you TONS!! We wish you were here too!

Nanny's Visit Day 1:: Everything Out

Well!  At last the long awaited day is here, and the boys are to have their special bedroom makeover.  The boys are tickled pink!  Yesterday we worked on simply getting everything organized... pulling everything out of the closets, moving the furniture away from the walls (for painting purposes), and wiping down everything really well.  Here are a few pictures of the work-in-process...

 

We also went through the boys' clothing to make sure that everything they had in their closets still fit properly.  (We'll let you guess the end result of that expedition!)  Phew, what a job. And after school is over, back to work we go... today is decide-on-paint-samples day.  We're enjoying our time with Nanny, and are so thankful that she gets to be with us!

(Random thought: Isn't Nanny the cutest name for a grandmother?)

One Happy Camper!

Our little camp stool was in pretty poor shape when we picked it up for $6 at a local flea market. (If you've read our blog for long, you know how we love flea markets!) It looked something like this (except for the fact it had a tacky blue paint on the legs, and the cover was an unattractive striped material)... 

We girls saw that it "could" make an adorable addition to our room. So... we went for it, hoping for the best. Wiping down thoroughly, a can of white spray paint, and a new cover was needed. To make the cover, Abigail tore off the old one (by getting the staples out) and measured its length and width. Then she took some pretty, bright vintage fabric we'd gotten at another near-by flea market (14 yards on a bolt for $15! We saw that bargain a mile away!), cutting out the size she'd measured from the old piece, plus a little extra seam allowance. Abigail got some plain white sheeting and sewed the two fabrics right sides together, leaving a small opening for turning. After turning it right side out, she hand whipped the opening closed. The staple gun was used to attach it to the frame. Viola! What a cute addition to our room!  

You could easily do this project for yourselves. A little camp stool, fabric you like, a rag, a bottle of spray paint, and a little imagination. You never know... maybe soon you'll be sitting pretty on a cute camp stool yourself!

posted by Achaia

Patterns, pink walls, and pillow shams

At this moment I feel as though I've lived patterns for the last few weeks. But now-- finally-- they are ready to go to the printer! What a major relief. It's still difficult for me to believe that the first-ever marie-madeline patterns will be debuting in the next month or so! That's the grace of God, let me tell you. Three down and about, maybe,  20 to go?

My workspace in the studio is incredibly crowded... so crowded in fact, that I often have my stuff strewn all about the house on every available countertop and table. However, my brilliant Dad has finally come up with a plan. After eighteen years of sharing a bedroom with one of my sisters, I have a room of my own... complete with workspace. (In other words, this was a very logical and reasonable way to keep my things somewhat contained!) When I moved in the room was a blank canvas. Completely white and completely empty. I painted it the most gorgeous shade of pink last week.... now it glows every day when the sun comes peeping through my window. Pictures can't really do it justice at all.

That's the wall for my personal "studio". I have enough room for a six-foot table! I plan on having some shelves hung to accomodate my jars of piddle. Still haven't found a good table, but we plan to go flea marketing one day this week. Flea markets yield the best furniture! Like this little blue chair that I picked up a couple of weeks ago in Oklahoma....

In my spare time I've been sewing up some new pillow shams, too. I am doing my room in Freshcut fabrics by Heather Bailey... that vintage-modern feel is wonderful!  

Hopefully I'll post some more updates soon!

posted by Apphia

Lots to do

Here I am working on changing from the "summer" bedroom to the "winter" bedroom.  One of my current fabric passions is Barefoot Roses, so I've decided to make the winter look with the rose, stripe and polka dot pillows to top the white chenille bedspread.  I like how they're turning out so far.  Here's the work in progress.... I trust I'll soon have a finished product for you to view.

Other than working on the pillows, we are planning fall/winter clothes to sew, patterns to continue developing, etc...  Needless to say, having 8 children (ages 20 to 4) keeps me plenty busy with "creative pursuits".

posted by Kristie